


Kaleidoscopes

by All0doxaphobia



Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Barely any Comfort, F/M, Hurt, I've been saying for decades, Someone had to do it to him, Vague descriptions of a potentially fatal wound, Whump, if you don't take a blade for your friend, so I did it my damn self, someone needs to stab this man, you aren't friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All0doxaphobia/pseuds/All0doxaphobia
Summary: Never mix Eclipse and a promise of safety
Relationships: Kym Ladell & Kieran White, Lauren Sinclair & Kieran White, Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White, William Hawkes & Kieran White, William Hawkes/Kym Ladell
Comments: 29
Kudos: 80





	1. Fragments

Have you ever looked into a kaleidoscope as a child? All fragmented colors and shapes whirling before your eyes, and your mind cannot grasp the images before you.  
Kieran had only looked into one once in his life and decided it was much too intense for him as a child. Well, he was starting to regret not instilling that immunity in himself early on, because now he didn't know what the hell he was seeing.

The last thing he remembered before the world dimmed was...falling. No, not falling, stumbling. There was a crack of metal on bone and the splitting pain of steel splitting cloth and flesh. The alleyway felt like it had been cracked down the middle and folded along the seams, the shadows of the night pierced by blaring flashes of red, blue, and white. What the fuck was he looking at right now?

He tried to move, shift down from where his head was tilted toward the sky. Dampness beneath his back and soaking his clothes stirred a groan of annoyance and he shifted on the ground. He would have stood, were it not for the warm hands slid along his cheeks, accompanied by a voice, muddled by ocean water: ".....n't move. Don't move a goddamn inch, Kieran."

A face began to fade into view, bathed in these lights and shapes. Familiar, yet so distant. Soft and sharp at the same time, like a fox. The similarities didn't stop there. Her hair was a shock of red, like blood staining snow, and it was swept back from his face in a low set bun, loose strands framing brilliant golden eyes. She seemed like a creature caught from the pages of a storybook, something he desperately wanted to capture on a canvas. Pretty was hardly a word to describe her. She was beautiful in an unreachable way, a flame too hot to touch, but wanted to curl your fingers around.

_Who are you?_

"Kieran, look at me. Do you remember what happened?" She asked, smoothing her fingers along the planes of his scrunched forehead as he tried to comb through his memory, looking for names, faces. Memories. Faces of friends, if he could call them that, flashed before her face. A sharpshooter and her lieutenant, who had no reason to associate with the likes of him. But they did. The fox woman, squeezing his arm with a murmur of assurance before plunging into the dark. They were there, but he was far too groggy to get a firm grasp. His head swam with effort, coming up with fragments.

"Lauren..." He murmured, tasting the name on his tongue, and finding it fits the woman the most. Must be her name. Yes...yes, Lauren! Lauren Sinclair, pain in the ass officer, who hated him and everything he stood for. His head was in Lauren's lap. He didn't know what to make of that, and thankfully he didn’t have to, because more names followed in tow with hers. Kym, William. They were there with them. Where were they? Where was anyone? What happened?

"Kieran, you have to stay focused. What do you remember?" William asked from where he crouched beside him, worry lining his voice, and he could feel Lauren’s fingers working their way into his hair, curling and shifting in a way that made him long to fall asleep right here, which was likely the opposite effect that she wanted.

“Lauren, if you want me to focus, keep your hands out of my hair.” he mustered a small, bladed grin, that fell as soon as she slipped her hands away. And then he felt sorry for every chasing her away when mind-splitting pain clawed its way through his nerves, clenching his teeth with a cry of agony, followed closely behind with shame at his own fragility. 

“You have to stay awake. Kieran, keep your damn eyes open.” Lauren hissed, the harshness of her voice not matching her actions in the slightest, which made him more disoriented. She pressed her palm to his cheek, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning further into her touch. He couldn’t tell if her hand was warm, or if he was freezing. “Tell me what you can remember.” She commanded him.

"...not much. I remember..." He narrowed his eyes in thought, and let his memory flood to him. "Um...fighting? I remember Kym-"

Wait. Wait, Kym. He lurched in Lauren's grasp, hands flexing for his weapon. Something, anything. He remembered someone coming up behind Kym. A blade. He couldn't let her-

"Where's Kym? Lauren, I was the closest one to her, tell me I didn’t-" pain seized him with an icy grip, and he collapsed back into Lauren's lap, and suddenly became aware of multiple hands on his abdomen. One of them curled in his own, squeezing his fingers, but he couldn't- see-

"I'm alright, Kieran. Will and I are both alright." Kym's voice reached his ears, soothing the part of him rearing up to rampage. Hazel flashed before him, there and then gone, her hand slipping from his and pressed again to his torso.

"What...what did I do?" He croaked, his heart picking up from its slow thumping, and the hands got frantic. Something was wrong. So _so wrong_.  
Lauren said something, trying to reach beyond the swell in his ears, but the ringing was getting louder. Too loud. The world was spinning, why why why was it still spinning. The colors flashing in his eyes began to meld and swirl into something unrecognizable, red and gold lost to grey and white splotches in his eyes.

"...Am I dying?"

And then, the world slipped out of focus, and he was falling into something that felt like nothingness.


	2. Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "With those very words, a wave of clarity flooded through him, and he understood why the universe chose her as his other half. Understood that it was only fair for them to be polar ends of the same spectrum. Always clashing and blending, but the same nonetheless."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remembered to be nice :)  
> Well...  
> In a way.

_ It was here in this nothingness where Kieran remembered. _

_ Still fragments of faces, brutal faces splintering in his mind like stained glass. Everything had happened so fast. Too fast. And yet here, time seemed to slow. _

_ And he could remember- _

_ Remember why his heart stopped that night. _

_ 5. _

_ It took five seconds to leap in the way. Kym stared at Kieran, eyes blasted in shock as he came barrelling. His feet fell heavily, as if weighed down by cement shoes, his heart thumping a chaotic beat in his chest. The man’s face contorted with twisted glee as he lunged for the sergeant with flashing steel. His hands were heavy as he shoved the woman out of the way, and he’d been stupid enough to let himself get distracted. Let himself flash her a grin. _

_ 4. _

_ Four seconds to hit the ground. It was a near-miss of his heart, but just barely. The shock of ice and metal between his ribs forced a shriek of pain that was frankly unbecoming of an assassin of 7 years. With quickly draining strength, he slammed the hilt of his sword into the man’s head, and he crumpled like a ragdoll at his feet, giving Kieran barely enough time to stagger away before he did the same. _

_ He distantly remembered someone yelling and the pounding of feet against the ground, but they weren’t fast enough to keep him from crashing when his knees gave out. _

_ 3. _

_ Normally, if a hemorrhaging isn’t stopped, a person can bleed to death in just five minutes. _

_ Lauren had fallen to her knees beside Kieran. Everything sounded as if he’d been plunged underwater, her lips parting to scream at William for help. His vision began to flicker before he could see William run to call an ambulance. The five-minute timer began when he collapsed, one was wasted calling for help. _

_ It took two tries for Lauren to touch him. Two minutes.  _ **_Contemplating_ ** _. _

_ 2. _

_ She hesitated. _

_ 1. _

_ His one mistake was to think she’d spare him because he did the same. _

_ His one mistake was being foolish enough to dream that Lauren Sinclair would care enough to save a monster. _

_ His one mistake… _

_ Was ever living at all. _

* * *

* * *

The first breath Kieran took since the alleyway was in a hospital.

There were a lot of things to hate about hospitals. Kieran's happened to be a little more unorthodox. For one: he hated that the air tasted sterile. Like it wasn't enough that the floors and walls were disinfected - they had to scrub the air vents, too. His other issue is that the only reason he'd end up in a hospital, it was because something horrible happened. That also meant that when he woke, he'd be alone in a hospital room, save for the nurses staring down at him with pity.

And pity is what he hated the most.

He almost wanted to delay opening his eyes for as long as he could. He tried to convince himself that he could handle waking up alone, that he was used to the steady beeping of a heart monitor as his only lullaby in place of human voices.

What made him crack his eyes open, though, was the twitch of someone's hand tangled in his. They were small in his, but stronger than his own, which may very well have been the blood loss talking. Company. He had company this time. His eyes fluttered open, the shock of red hair and gold eyes pinned on him, the despair and relief flooding her face simultaneously familiar and foreign. Beside her was a softer presence of a sergeant and lieutenant, who watched him with bated breath, as if waiting to prove he wasn’t a dream. Their faces were pinched with a desperate hopefulness that struck the core of him like a jolt of electricity. And yet, he still quirked an eyebrow at the people before him, a weak smile playing over his lips. 

“So sad to see me? I’m hurt.”

He had hardly enough time to prepare before finding himself with an armful of Kym, who buried her face into her collar, a strangled sob of relief escaping her. Euphoria flooded him and, if he could, he’d let himself drown in the feeling. This is what it’s like to be wanted. To have someone worry over you, and hold you like a buoy in a storm. She shifted, and he was brutally reminded of his injuries, gritting his teeth and squirming in her iron grip.

“Ow- Kym, I was just stabbed-” he groaned, causing her to reel back, nearly crashing into Lauren, still frozen and pallid in the hospital chair. Kym gripped his shoulders, drilling him with questions about how he was feeling. When he grabbed her hands and commanded her to pipe down, that was her cue to knock him over the head with the flat of her palm. 

“If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll put you out of your misery myself-” She snapped, her nose scrunched in annoyance borne of worry.

“Prepare my coffin then, because I’ll do it again, and I won’t think twice about it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’m your idiot though.”

William interrupted the two. “That was far too close of a call, Kieran.” He wrung his hands, tucking them into his pockets and looking him up and down. Still stoic and controlled in manner. He could always count on Hawkes to stay as he left him in all situations. “You- you were out for four days.”

Kieran’s face went slack.  _ Four days _ … He opened his mouth. Closed it. “I’m here now, William. That’s all that matters.” He offered a smile but found it too false to hold for long. Especially after Lauren finally found the air to speak.

“But you weren’t.”

The air grew colder. Heavier. William averted his gaze from Lauren, his lips pressed into a thin line. Kym, the most jubilant between the four of them, turned a shade of green and turned her eyes to her palms solemnly. And Lauren… Lauren seemed to dim when she looked at him. Like a light had been taken from her eyes and crushed underfoot. Staring right through him, her voice trembled when she next spoke.

“...You were gone, Kieran.”

* * *

To put it simply: Kieran shouldn't be here. It's what the doctors told him, it's what William could muster when the other two wouldn't, it's what will forever be dancing in his brain until the abyss swallows him up and doesn't let him out again.

Lauren explains later with shaky hands that he’d lost a lot of blood that night. That he’d flatlined for ten minutes. He was dead for ten minutes, and the ringing in his ears hadn’t faded since. It kept him up at night, refusing to close his eyes, the thought of the reaper coming back to claim what had slipped from his grasp echoing like a broken record in his mind.

Not that any of this was their business. No, he was used to bearing his paranoias alone, hidden under a warm cloak of denial and shielded by his most obnoxious smiles. They didn’t need to see the circles beneath his eyes, or the puffy red and purples that marred his ribs when he stripped off his bandages when phantom blades scraped against bone when he was too tired to fend off irrational thought. He was fine.  _ He was fine. _

Well, he could shout from the rooftops, but they weren’t budging. After William banned him from showing up to work until the following week, Kym had made it a point to visit him every evening like a babysitter. The only other person who’d been to this apartment was Lauren, and now Kym was barging in like she owned the place. Makes sense she’d further the inconvenience by dragging Lauren along one night.

“Stay for tea, why don’t you?” He drawled, opening the door wider for them to enter.  _ Don’t overexert yourself _ , they said. Did they know half his overexertion was their fault?

Well, a lot of things were their fault.

“You’re funny.” Kym snapped back with equally as dry a tone, peeling off her jacket and hanging it on a rack, Lauren following in suit tentatively. Lauren stayed quiet as Kym began to fuss over the state of his apartment Kieran griping with her about her pain in the ass superior exiling him from the APD. It wasn’t until they were all seated in Kieran’s living room, mugs of tea in hand, that Lauren had willed herself to speak.

“Are you...feeling alright?” Lauren muttered, her hands clutched around the steaming mug of tea and he found himself slipping, wanting to smooth the worry lines on her face beneath his thumb and tell her he’d be okay. He knew though, deep down, that if he did that - if he touched her, said those words, it’d be stained with the dark ink of a lie.

Kieran traced the lip of his own mug, a thousand words brimming at his lips, yet all he could manage was a shrug and nonchalance. “I haven’t stayed still long enough to consider how I’m feeling.” He picked through his words carefully, watching her bristle at the truth, lips pursed and eyes narrowed. 

“Your doctor told you to rest-” Kym furrowed her brow, pinning him with a rather ruthless glare. He simply rolled his eyes, sipping his tea pointedly. “You could rupture something overexerting yourself.”

“Kym, you say that like I’m doing a circus routine in my home. It’s just some minor cleaning and exercise so I don’t get stiff, relax.” he scoffed, eyeing Lauren, whose shoulders only stiffened further. He could see the thin strings binding her temper into something controllable fray little by little the more he spoke.

“We’re just concerned for your safety Kieran. You’re trying to act like you didn’t-” Kieran clenched his jaw, and Lauren flinched, turning her eyes down to the mug on the cusp of shattering under white knuckles. She tried again. “-like nothing even happened.”

Kieran couldn’t help but laugh, a low, vicious laugh that filled the room. Lauren looked up, her face dropping a shade or two at the sound. “Since when did you care about my  _ safety,  _ Lauren?” He smiled a small thing, but bladed and chilled to the touch. “Need I remind you how we got in this situation in the first place?”

If she could get any paler, it was that exact moment. She opened her mouth to retort, but Kym beat her to it.

“Ah, shit, I spilled tea on my shirt!” Kym whined, snatching a napkin from between the three of them and pressing it to a spot on her shirt that was physically impossible for tea to spill onto. “If this stains, it’s your fault.” She shot him an accusatory look, to which he responded with a raised brow.

“You know where the bathroom is. Hopefully, the stain comes out.” a sarcastic grin spreading over his face. She’d disappeared into the bathroom, and Kieran took that as his cue to start picking up the mugs, silence filling the room like a fog, misting the windows and filling their lungs with steam that made their breaths heavy.

"...I didn't mean-" Kieran started, but tapered off at the creak of her shifting in the chair. Still clutching her mug. Did he forget to-? his mind was truly going away. He padded over to her as quietly as he could, drumming his fingers just short of her mug in a soft request for her to hand it to him. Her gaze flit between his face and his hand, her mind slowly piecing together what he wanted from her. He tried to ignore the way his fingertips warmed when they brushed hers. He tried to ignore the way he wanted  _ more,  _ firmly reminding himself that she was the kind of woman who only took and never returned anything. So why did it hurt to pull away? Why is it that, when their hands separated like an exhale, he still felt as if he was holding his breath?

"I know." She mumbled, her knuckles popping from behind him as she wrung her hands, while he staggered back to the sink, his mind hinging on her soft hands. "I'm worried...that's all."

"Well, you shouldn't be," Kieran set down the mug in his sink tersely, making a mental note to wash the dishes later. "I can take care of myself. I'm not a child-"

"I'm not saying you are-"

"You're certainly not acting like it."

"Is it so hard for you to believe that I care about what happens to you?" Lauren finally burst, her cheeks flushed in indignance, about one more comment away from lunging at him. Ever the spitfire, ready to claw and tear down, leaving only ashes on your tongue when she's finished with you. And he'd been in her line of fire for too long, as he started to crave the taste of smoke.

"Yes, actually-" he spat, the sink cold where he clenched the rim, an anchor to keep him from sinking too deep in his anger. "I'm finding it near impossible to think of you as capable of compassion!"

"Because of you, I-"

Maybe it was to his benefit that his body stepped in to stop what next came from his mouth, but it was hard to appreciate it when mind-numbing pain split through him like shattering glass, an involuntary grunt of pain escaping him. Déjà Vu washed over him as his own name reached his ears from Lauren's lips, reaching out to where he was drowning in the roar of blood in his ears. He was on his knees, gripping his ribs with his eyes squeezed shut. He couldn't focus. His apartment cracked down in two again. Was he even in his apartment again? Was he not back in the alleyway, the night sky draining to fuzzy gray?

"Kieran, please look at me-" Lauren's voice cut through the cotton in his ears, wavery with a throat lined in tears. She was in front of him, on her knees, cupping his face while he gripped her arms. He didn't remember moving to do that. "Look at me. Are you okay? Are you hurt-"

I’m fine, he wanted to scream. Well, apparently even his body wasn’t believing the bullshit his mind was saying because another wave of pain crackled to life in his ribs, and he gripped Lauren’s arm tighter, his head bowing to rest on her shoulder as he took shuddering breaths to steady himself. He focused on the smell of apple blossoms and cinnamon lingering on her collar, the way her hands brushed over his shoulder like a whisper. The way she leaned towards him long after he pulled himself away, sorrow playing like a discordant note in her eyes and he  _ hated it. _ She  _ did this to him,  _ how  _ dare she  _ look at him like she was the only one hurting?

“I...” Lauren pulled back, wrenched her hands off his shoulders. A beat passed. Then two. Kieran began to wonder, finally taking in her disheveled clothes and unsteady eyes… was she truly hurting more than him? “I’m-”

“Kieran! Are you okay?” Kym’s feet were bounding in from the hallway, and the sharp flash of gold faded into a shade of hazel that was easier to stomach. Easier to lie to her face, and to watch her face change from worry to something softer.

“Don’t worry about me so much, sunshine,” he offered the sharpshooter a lighthearted grin, praying it wasn’t too strained. “I’m still walking, aren’t I?”

_ He was fine. _

He wasn’t fine.

He'd always be too stubborn to admit the objective truth, but he wasn't fine.

Maybe he never was, to begin with.

* * *

_ Kieran...Kieran!" _

_ His eyes fluttered open. Goodness, how long had he been like this, on his back on dewey surfaces? He was back in the gardens of the ward, kept at bay from the horrors for however many seconds more. To give them this time, he had to beg. Had to promise. Sell his soul, for one breath of fresh air, and goddammit if he wasn't going to savor every last second here. _

_ "Kieran!" That voice called out, beckoned to him, and he'd fold, give in. He knew when he sat up, she'd be there, crouched in the spring grass, with irises and snowdrops clutched in her fingers. Those dimples cheeks, forever pink with a joy he'd die to keep there. Pure as an evergreen, he adored her. He chased her.  _

_ He tried to protect her. _

_ "Kieran, come here! Look what I found!" She calls to him again, and what can he do except push himself to his feet, hesitating to open his eyes. All he was doing was looking at her, so what was there to be frightened of? _

_ But when cerulean finally splits open like a roof collapsing to reveal a blue sky, the first thing he sees is gold. _

_ And he realizes it wasn't her at all. _

_ And he wasn’t in the garden, but pinned beneath a looming figure in his bed. Blood stained his lips as he desperately tried to free himself from her grasp, but instead found himself trapped. The blade in her hands was cold as ice as it slipped through soft cotton and softer flesh, and he choked on her name, a desperate plea to spare him. _

_ “Lauren-” cruel gold flickered with the twisted glee of the thug in the streets, the pleasure of repaying him for all his hurt etched on her lips. _

_ Only fair, she crooned, twisting the blade. _

_ Only fair he pays for his crimes with his life. _

_ Only fair he dies for trying to kill her, _

_ Only fair. _

* * *

A sick sense of relief ebbed into his bloodstream long after he shot out of his bed, clutching at his chest with sweaty, shaking palms. Relief, and dread lying just beneath the surface of tentative content, like sugar mingling with bile on his tongue. His hands shook, pushing the buttons of his shirt through. They trembled as he forced himself to down a cup of tea as if he could trick himself into believing this unshakeable unease was the makings of temporary nerves. Like it would go away.

He didn’t mean to flinch when Lauren turned her gaze onto him. He didn’t mean to let her into his mind as easily as a glance and shift of a trembling hand. He didn’t mean to let his scattered mind speak for him, leaving the archive door unlocked for her to pass through.

He didn’t want to admit he was lying to himself, either.

“Kieran, what’s wrong?” Lauren shut the door with a soft click, approaching him where he stooped over his desk, not really looking at the paperwork before him, just...not wanting to look at  _ her. _

_ Why did you hesitate?  _ He wanted to demand. Wanted to interrogate her through the rest of the day on what it was that he did to hurt her. What he could have said or not said to undo her hurt. Instead, he croaked out a lie. “ **Nothing's wrong Lauren.** ” he murmured, slipping the frames from the bridge of his nose and folding them as neatly as he could. 

She was closer now. He could feel her beside him, her fingers outstretched in a hesitant request, only to pull back. Hesitate.

_ Three minutes. _

_ Only fair. _

Her hand brushed his shoulder, featherlight to the touch, yet his hand shot out and gripped her wrist. He held her gaze, desperation clashing against an eerie calm. He was the first to release, she was the first to speak.

“Listen, I- you said something to me in the alleyway...that night.” 

There it was again. That dread. The one that broke through his thoughts like an ice pick. "Oh?"

Lauren wrinkled her nose. "Don’t play coy with me, Kieran.” She warned him, moving instead to grip his chair, effectively framing his entire vision with just her. Just red, gold, and dread. “You know what I’m talking about."

Kieran paused, inhaling softly as he looked away from her. Yes...yes, he knew what she was talking about...

_ Am I dying? _

"...I’ll try and come up with something more creative the next time I get stabbed.” He shrugged, trying for a grin and a joke, but both falling flat at her feet. He supposed he could never truly fake it with someone like her, even if he knew how to. He could see it in the way her shoulders bunched, and a new type of fire lit in her eye. One he wasn’t familiar with but had seen it once before when she believed him a threat to the ones she truly loved. The fire of protection.

“I’m not joking, Kieran.” She said through grit teeth, his chair groaning beneath the clench of her fist as she drew back, taking her warmth with her. He raised his chin in defiance and tried to raise himself higher, his conviction to prove himself right when he was hopelessly wrong overpowering his innate physical weakness.

“And neither am I.” He said, his voice stern because it lacked the bite he needed these days. He hesitated, turning his face back to his desk as he continued. “I wouldn’t just say something like that just to scare you. I thought-”

“And you were.”

“Yes, I was. Do you not like it when I say what you were thinking for you?”

“I don’t  _ like it _ when you put yourself in danger just to prove a point.” She pushed herself back from his chair, hurt flickering across her face like a candle sputtering out. He rose slowly, grateful for natural height in this one moment. And yet...he never felt smaller in his life. Never felt so  _ weak  _ to anyone’s gaze before.

But he still spoke. It was  _ only fair  _ that he did.

“I made a promise to you, Lauren.” He stated plainly, forcing his voice to harden. Become clipped and controlled in all the ways he trained himself to. Turned his voice into the weapon he needed when a physical one wouldn’t suffice. “None of your friends will meet their end if I have any say in the matter.”

_ Only fair. Only  _ **_fair._ **

“Contrary to what you may believe, I don’t hesitate to keep my promises.”

As he turned his back to her, shielding himself from the pain glazing her eyes until they blurred into a flatter tone, he couldn’t help-

He couldn’t help but think that maybe he was the one being unfair.

* * *

Kieran remained true to his word. He maintained his role as the brute force he was trained to be. The destruction he was twisted into by hands that liked to shatter glass and put it together with all the wrong pieces. He never liked to admit that, at the core of him, something was broken. He never liked when someone forced him to be broken and lashed out with the jagged edges when it happened.

“Why did you hesitate, Lauren?”

They were back where they began. Hesitating. Demanding. It was broad daylight now, shadows cast by the sun caressing his face as he stared down at where he was when he fell. When his heart had started its steady march to death. Lauren was staring at him, he could feel it. The tiny little quirks in her face as she shot through a thousand emotions at once, all of them blurring into something like a fragmented facade of blankness.

After a beat of pregnant silence, she swallowed. “...I don’t know.”

A lie.  _ A lie _ , she was  _ lying _ . She  _ had _ to be lying. She had to know, she couldn’t just-

She couldn’t have faltered for no reason. He’d done something, and she thought she was sparing him by not telling him.

He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms, igniting a pain he could barely feel over the brokenness of his irregular heartbeat. A heartbeat that wasn’t there for  _ ten minutes.  _ Because she took  _ three _ .

Fine.

"Maybe it would’ve been easier to let me die.” He curled his lips into a sardonic smile, an accepting smile as he stared at the spot he’d been sprawled across, and he could nearly taste the iron in the blood he spilled over the stone he stood on. "I mean, it would save the three of you a whole world of trouble-"

"Kieran." Lauren’s voice resounded beside him.

Oh, how his own name began to sound like the death toll of a bell, the signal that he was too far gone. Too far gone to stop. "You can say you finally rid the world of the Purple Hyacinth. I'd consider that nobler than letting him live-"

Lauren grit her teeth, jaw locked, and really, wasn’t this so familiar? Kieran digging himself into his own grave, sparked by nothing, but intent on dragging her into the smoke with him.

How unfair of him.

Even more unfair was her response, her lips parting and to spit out the words he’d been too stubborn to let himself hear.

“I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear?” she seethed, apology feeling like a threat more than sincerity, and he had no one but himself to blame for it. Her fists unfurled themselves, spread on either side of her as she continued her spiel. "Do you want to hear how scared I was to lose you?”

Scared to lose him? 

“You want to hear how I spent all this time wishing you’d drop dead, just to be terrified when it almost came true?" She pursed her lips together, her face dropping all of the anger and resentment he’d grown to love despite himself. Grown to despise himself for loving. And now all that was left there was... _ grief.  _ Heart-wrenching sorrow he never thought her capable of showing to him, never mind on behalf of him.

Kieran couldn’t help the scowl that crept across his features, the defiance that filled his feeble heart.

No, she wouldn’t  _ dare  _ -

“What would have happened if it did come true, Lauren? What would you have done if I hadn’t made it out of the Emergency Room?” Lauren fell into a heavy silence, her eyes downcast, shadows drowning out the flash of gold, and Kieran wasn’t having it. He wanted  _ answers. Tell me the truth.  _ “What would you have done if I  _ died _ , Lauren?”

“You did die!” She shrieked, her unsteady resolve finally snapping for the first time in weeks. Her eyes were blasted wide, her hair slowly becoming unkempt as she unraveled.

“For  _ ten fucking minutes, _ you were  _ gone! _ Your heart stopped, and it was  _ my fault! _ And I wanted to die right then and there. I wanted to tear the man who  _ killed you  _ to pieces!” her breathing picked up in tempo, her words stumbling and blending like botched cursive. He remained still, color draining from his face as she drew forward, a blaze in her eyes marred by mist. “You want to know why I hesitated, Kieran? I don’t know what the fuck to tell you.” 

Tears spilled down her cheeks, cutting a path clean across her skin, clogging her throat to a rasp as she forced her last words from her lips.

“I  _ don’t know. _ ”

Kieran’s blood went cold. With those very words, a wave of clarity flooded through him, and he understood why the universe chose her as his other half. Understood that it was only fair for them to be polar ends of the same spectrum. Always clashing and blending, but the same nonetheless. He knew her like the back of his hand, so it was only fair she knew him just the same. Perhaps more. He knew how to hit her where it hurt, only fair she knew how to pick him apart until a softer version remained. He spared her life, only fair that she nearly ended his.

She stood there, swiping at her cheeks furiously. So what was fair?

It wasn’t fair to hesitate.

He knew that much. So he didn’t.

He reached out like he always would. Picked up the broken pieces. Offered to piece them together. He grasped her shoulders softly, a soft call for her to look at him.

How broken her eyes were. Fragmented, like the kaleidoscopes he named himself too weak to bear. Here, he stared into them with no hesitation. No urge to turn away. A broken sound fell from her lips as he guided her into his arms, allowing them the warmth they’d both been fighting stubbornly since they met. He buried his nose into the red sea of her hair, breathing in cinnamon and the tinge of rain that tangled in damp locks. Savored her shuddering breaths of surprise as she finally heard his heartbeat, Her ear pressed to his chest. Her hands slipped beneath his jacket, grasping at the cotton concealing a newer scar from her eyes.

And with each heartbeat, they could dry the tears welling in their eyes. They could fix the broken pieces and turn them into a stained glass beauty.

Broken, yes.

But colorful in its fragmented pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think I'm gonna write Kieran walking out of the hospital unaffected by being told he died for ten minutes....I'm sorry to tell you, but you're sorely mistaken.
> 
> Yes, I absolutely stan Kym acting like a concerned older sister to a man three years older than her. Stan sibling dynamic!Kyki, they own my heart.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this, I really appreciate it!

**Author's Note:**

> Not me writing this instead of paying attention to my English class seminar O-o  
> I refuse to promise anything good, but please note that there are two chapters here. If I remember to be nice, maybe it'll end happy-ish.


End file.
